Seeing as money from Starcraft expansions is one time revenue, they can't "Milk" Heart of the Swarm in any meaningful way. The way Starcraft is setup, the faster they put out the expansions, the better it is from a profit perspective. If they were truly greedy douchebags they'd release it roughly 3 months after Heart of the Swarm just to get a secondary push on HoTS sales for people deciding to join in.

You forget the immense profits they gain from adverts and free publicity at eSports tournaments, etc. This stuff is broadcast on TV-channels and streaming-websites worldwide, and even sells out major arenas from time to time. The longer each iteration of Starcraft 2 is relevant and popular, the longer they can wait with releasing expansions, and the longer the game will be kept alive. This also pushes back the eventual development of Starcraft 3, which also saves them a lot of money.

In short, developers want their games to last as long as possible. That's the main reason they delay HotS and LotV. Implementing ten new units, a new campaign, and re-balancing parts of the game hardly takes an experienced crew over two years.

The thing with WoW-expansion announcements is that it takes away from the supposedly awesome final patch of the current expansion. You just wanna hear more about the new expansion, whatever they show of the final patch just can't interest you as much as it should.

Blizzcon, over priced and not worth it unless you are a serious fan of blizzard and everything they put out on the market.

I know people who have gone to a few of them and they say if you are there for the 3 days you will get very bored very quickly. If you enjoy it great and all but in general nope.

Also with regard to titan, I work with someone who worked at the company.. it looks amazing but will be a very casual affair according to what he saw while still at the company. This isn't an OMG CASUAL LOLZ... just passing on some info I was given.

Mostly interested in D3 xpack, i've learned to be careful about overhyping things (Titan), and i'll still be too busy with MoP to care much about an expansion that is 8ish months away from release even at the time of Blizzcon.

Diablo 3 is terrible why would anyone want an expansion lol. Anyway I expect talk of SC expansion, New character models and raids in Wow and unfortunately the D3 Auction House Simulator expansion. There will be nothing about Titan.

Every second year we see a WoW expansion pack announced, and I very much doubt this year will be any different - particularly considering how they skipped Blizzcon last year. The only thing that could make this a wrong guess is if they decide to announce it earlier in the year and release it already around Blizzcon (assuming it is in the fall), to shorten the time between expansions.

Think you're right about HotS and D3expac but not WoW. Too early for an announcement like that. I also think the ONLY reason everyone is convinced the next expansion will be Burning Legion focused is because there is no more pre-existing lore to explore. Which ignores the possibility they will just create new lore - which they have to do anyway because otherwise what the hell do we fight after the Burning Legion?

It's not just a WoW problem either. If we defeat the Burning Legion that's pretty much the end of the entire future Warcraft franchise.

This really is the difficult one. Blizzard's next-gen MMO has been in development for five years, and with every Blizzcon in recent years people have predicted its unveiling and been wrong. The fact that Blizzard took two years off from Blizzcon might suggest that they wanted to get to a certain point with the game before unveiling it, and that we'll see it this year. However, they've also said that they want to announce games closer to release nowadays in order to prevent disappointments and unfulfilled promises, so it's not entirely implausible that we won't see anything for another year or two.

Your turn!

I expect that Titan will ONLY be announced depending on WoW subscription base numbers and Diablo III's RMAH returns.

If WoW's doing well as well as D3's RMAH (which I don't believe is hitting expectations at all at Blizz) - they'll hold off of Titan.

WoW is currently their only source of revenue. When Titan was planned, they had 2 other planned "cash cows" for continual financial feed if anything happened to WoW - SC2's $$ Map store and D3's RMAH. SC2's real-money Map-store never materialized due to technical problems, and D3's RMAH kinda went bust because... well.. D3's development kinda went bust (so much for releasing things when they're "ready"...). That leaves all the revenue eggs still sitting in one basket - WoW.

Blizz will want a new cash-cow up and established just in CASE anything happens to WoW's subs... Lets face it, it's pretty damn amazing that they've gone this far (especially after Cataclysm! :P) after all these years - so they probably will NOT keep testing their luck without having a backup revenue source already in-place. :P

---------- Post added 2013-01-03 at 06:41 AM ----------

Originally Posted by crackleslap

I really really really want info on Titan. That's all I care about at the moment from Blizzard. WoW Expac seems to early.

I'd imagine by then you'll be itching for what's next on the horizon. :P

---------- Post added 2013-01-03 at 06:45 AM ----------

Incidentally - I do believe we'll see the D3 expansion pack announced at Blizzcon.... and may be the primary showcased item.

Despite its record first week sales, D3 has been VERY poorly received by those who bought it, and only a fraction of those 10 mill copies are still playing... and only a fraction of that fraction are probably buying things from the RMAH.

Blizz will probably want to "re-launch" Diablo III with an expansion to try to recapture those fans who are disenfranchised from its design in hopes to get more RMAH revenue in. Weither they can pull it off or not is a whole other story. :P

Last edited by mvallas; 2013-01-03 at 06:42 AM.

"Tell them only that the Lich King is dead... and that World of Warcraft... died with him..."

Originally Posted by BenBos

That's the ONLY reason you would post 9600 posts over 3 years: a mission of hate.

Think you're right about HotS and D3expac but not WoW. Too early for an announcement like that. I also think the ONLY reason everyone is convinced the next expansion will be Burning Legion focused is because there is no more pre-existing lore to explore. Which ignores the possibility they will just create new lore - which they have to do anyway because otherwise what the hell do we fight after the Burning Legion?

It's not just a WoW problem either. If we defeat the Burning Legion that's pretty much the end of the entire future Warcraft franchise.

No, the reason people think the Burning Legion is next expansion is probably because of the multiple clues and the fact Blizzard usually foreshadows future content with clues. There are at the moment multiple clues about the legion which are new, while there are no clues for anything else.

Here's a good list of clues, some from beta which seem to have been removed.

Just because we fight the Legion again doesn't mean we destroy them. Just because Sargeras finally comes back doesn't mean he won't be around for multiple expansions when he finally does come back. And just because we kill Sargeras doesn't mean there's not room for future brand new characters and lore. There's a good chance the next expansion is Legion connected.